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+--- Thread: The New Robber Barons (/thread-5323.html)
The New Robber Barons - beechnut79 - 01-10-2019
The attached story confirms what we have now known for a long time, and that is that we have a new era of robber barons operating in Silicon Valley. The enclosed article says a lot but in my opinion doesn't quite go far enough. It forgets to mention that while these companies such as Uber who use drivers boast about being able to be your own boss, that meme stops at being able to choose your own schedule. By all we should now know that where everything else is concerned they definitely operate on a "my way of the highway" credo. And if your ratings fall below a ridiculously high level, even if you have not done anything terribly wrong you can be "deactivated", their euphemism for "fired" with no reason given and usually no real grounds for appeal. Just ask any Uber driver this happened to, including yours truly. I have boycotted them ever since, and the couple of times I needed rideshare I used Lyft, but now I have heard that they really are no better in this regard. These companies have little regard for the drivers even though without them the companies would not exist. Same for those offering delivery of food, grocery shopping, cleaning, etc.
Contrary to what we saw during the original robber baron era, there has so far at least been relatively little meaningful protest against these conditions although there have been occasional attempts which, like the Occupy movement, tended to be very short-lived. Will it take something as huge as the Bastille to create any sort of direction toward a kinder, gentler, Silicon Valley? And could it eventually go the way of Detroit? Are we able to build something of a movement with the answers gleaned? This inquiring mind would like to know.
RE: The New Robber Barons - beechnut79 - 01-10-2019
The link to the aforementioned article is here: https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2017/08/17/silicon-valley-billionaires-are-the-new-robber-barons-n2369394
RE: The New Robber Barons - David Horn - 01-10-2019
(01-10-2019, 04:45 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: … Contrary to what we saw during the original robber baron era, there has so far at least been relatively little meaningful protest against these conditions although there have been occasional attempts which, like the Occupy movement, tended to be very short-lived. Will it take something as huge as the Bastille to create any sort of direction toward a kinder, gentler, Silicon Valley? And could it eventually go the way of Detroit? Are we able to build something of a movement with the answers gleaned? This inquiring mind would like to know.
There is an interesting NY Times article by Thomas Edsall that discusses this. the Cliff Notes version: lobbyists have been so successful at coopting politicians of all stripes for decades, that people near the bottom of the economic ladder have given up on the government as an ally. This has lead to less support for government in general, which leads to more cooption, with the positive feedback loop leading steadily toward tyranny (my take on it at least). Unless that cycle is broken, the rich and powerful will eventually be untouchable.
RE: The New Robber Barons - Eric the Green - 01-11-2019
(01-10-2019, 04:45 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: The attached story confirms what we have now known for a long time, and that is that we have a new era of robber barons operating in Silicon Valley. The enclosed article says a lot but in my opinion doesn't quite go far enough. It forgets to mention that while these companies such as Uber who use drivers boast about being able to be your own boss, that meme stops at being able to choose your own schedule. By all we should now know that where everything else is concerned they definitely operate on a "my way of the highway" credo. And if your ratings fall below a ridiculously high level, even if you have not done anything terribly wrong you can be "deactivated", their euphemism for "fired" with no reason given and usually no real grounds for appeal. Just ask any Uber driver this happened to, including yours truly. I have boycotted them ever since, and the couple of times I needed rideshare I used Lyft, but now I have heard that they really are no better in this regard. These companies have little regard for the drivers even though without them the companies would not exist. Same for those offering delivery of food, grocery shopping, cleaning, etc.
Contrary to what we saw during the original robber baron era, there has so far at least been relatively little meaningful protest against these conditions although there have been occasional attempts which, like the Occupy movement, tended to be very short-lived. Will it take something as huge as the Bastille to create any sort of direction toward a kinder, gentler, Silicon Valley? And could it eventually go the way of Detroit? Are we able to build something of a movement with the answers gleaned? This inquiring mind would like to know.
Are you also a resident of Silicon Valley like me?
I haven't used these services yet, but I've heard the drivers are treated poorly. What we've got now is, failure to unionize. The demise of unions and worker regulations in the current Reaganomics era has given carte blanche to entreprenuers in this country to abuse their employees and pay them poorly.
RE: The New Robber Barons - pbrower2a - 01-11-2019
We got a fair warning from Karl Marx: the proletariat has nothing to offer but its toil. Maybe it can mix a little capital (a car and a cell phone) with its toil, but that capital is always an item that quickly devalues through depreciation and is expensive to maintain.
So far in this Crisis Era, the Great Devaluation seems to be of the value of labor. Capital has become a tool of elites and elites alone. America's economic elites are often on a moral plain just slightly higher than planters of the Old South if they own the assets and the Soviet nomenklatura if they wield bureaucratic power.
An Uber driver is basically an unlicensed cabbie. Cab-driving has been a miserable and dangerous job, and the only improvement that Uber offers is that the driver needs not carry cash that attracts a 'fare' that intends to rob the cabbie. But this is a specific.
Our economic elites are cruel, selfish, and rapacious to an extreme. To be sure, they have their Messiah -- Ayn Rand.
An illustration of how bad the American economy is getting is to be shown in a recent article of the New Republic.So a depressed community with the assets of (1) being close to some good roads, and (2) being close to Chicago should be able to 'live well and prosper' by attracting warehouses of several successful retailers (Wal*Mart, IKEA, Amazon, Home Depot, and Target. Goods go in, goods go out. Truckers fill their tanks at gas stations and maybe pick up some sandwiches, snacks, and video at the gas station. People out of work are able to get jobs that don't require much education. So what could possibly go wrong?
Quote:It’s hard to find anyone who will admit to it now, but when the CenterPoint Intermodal freight terminal opened in 2002, people in Elwood, Illinois, were excited. The plan was simple: shipping containers, arriving by train from the country’s major ports, were offloaded onto trucks at the facility, then driven to warehouses scattered about the area, where they were emptied, their contents stored. From there, those products—merchandise for Wal-Mart, Target, and Home Depot—were loaded into semis, and trucked to stores all over the country. Goods in, goods out. The arrangement was supposed to produce a windfall for Elwood and its 2,200 residents, giving them access to the highly lucrative logistics and warehousing industry. “People thought it was the greatest thing,” said Delilah Legrett, an Elwood native.
In addition to bringing more containers and warehouses, the Intermodal promised to foster vital growth and development. In a town without sidewalks, grand pronouncements were made in the run-up to the Intermodal’s debut. There would soon be hotels, restaurants, a grocery store; flower shops and bars would follow. Property values would surge, schools would be flush with cash. Most importantly, there would be great, high-paying jobs, the kind that could sustain a community devastated by farm failures and the wide-scale deindustrialization of the Midwest. In Will County, of which Elwood is part, the unemployment rate soared to a high of 18 percent in the 1980s, before gradually coming closer to the national average in the 1990s. In Joliet, the nearest urban center, it hit 27 percent in 1981.
An opportunity as great as the Intermodal came with a cost. First, to help seal the deal, the town had to offer the developer, CenterPoint, a sweetener: total tax abatement for two decades, until 2022. Second, the town would have to put up with an influx of truck traffic. No matter: With large-scale manufacturing shifting to the Pacific Rim at the turn of the millennium, the warehousing and logistics industry offered a chance to get back in the good graces of a global economy that had, for decades, turned its back on rural America. Elwood yoked its hopes to warehousing, which would carry the town to the forefront of America’s new consumer economy.
In a few short years after the Intermodal opened, Elwood became the largest inland port in North America. Billions of dollars in goods flowed through the area annually. The world’s most profitable retailers flocked to this stretch of barren country, while the headline unemployment rate plunged. Wal-Mart set up three warehouses in Will County alone, including its two largest national facilities, both located in Elwood. Samsung, Target, Home Depot, IKEA, and others all moved in. Will County is now home to some 300 warehouses. A region once known for its soybeans and cornfields was boxed up with gray facilities, some as large as a million square feet, like some enormous, horizontal equivalent of a game of Tetris.
The jobs came in, but most filtered through temporary agencies that employers like dealing with because temps don't unionize and get no benefits. The temps are paid nearly nothing and are often unable to afford cars or decent apartments -- and this is in a rural area. Traffic is a nightmare, with truckers obliged to work on inhuman schedules just to meet the timing of the warehouses -- and they crash often. Workers who get near-starvation pay are unable to form a consumer market that supports hotels, restaurants, bars, a grocery store, flower shops, or the like. The only retail addition to the town is a dollar store.
The labor is provided -- people must work just to avoid starving -- but it is treated badly.
https://newrepublic.com/article/152836/elwood-illinois-pop-2200-become-vital-hub-americas-consumer-economy-its-hell
(Cue bleak music from Dmitri Shostakovich).
RE: The New Robber Barons - Bill the Piper - 01-12-2019
Dependence on large-scale organisations like states and corporations is the root of the problem. We have to either go back to more a natural way of life, like the Amish did, or find a way for high tech to be usable in independent small scale communities.
RE: The New Robber Barons - Eric the Green - 01-12-2019
(01-12-2019, 11:08 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Dependence on large-scale organisations like states and corporations is the root of the problem. We have to either go back to more a natural way of life, like the Amish did, or find a way for high tech to be usable in independent small scale communities.
Probably a good ideal. I think on some issues a larger scale or global responsibility is somehow needed. Large organizations are a problem, but we are one global Humanity and Earth now.
RE: The New Robber Barons - pbrower2a - 01-12-2019
(01-12-2019, 11:08 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Dependence on large-scale organisations like states and corporations is the root of the problem. We have to either go back to more a natural way of life, like the Amish did, or find a way for high tech to be usable in independent small scale communities.
The Amish way of life is incompatible with giant cities, let alone high technology, meaning anything more advanced than railroads and bicycles. An education beyond junior high is worthless in their world.
RE: The New Robber Barons - Bill the Piper - 01-13-2019
(01-12-2019, 04:49 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(01-12-2019, 11:08 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Dependence on large-scale organisations like states and corporations is the root of the problem. We have to either go back to more a natural way of life, like the Amish did, or find a way for high tech to be usable in independent small scale communities.
The Amish way of life is incompatible with giant cities, let alone high technology, meaning anything more advanced than railroads and bicycles. An education beyond junior high is worthless in their world.
Simple living is more attractive than giant cities and swotting pages full of equations. This is the way Nature meant for us.
RE: The New Robber Barons - pbrower2a - 01-13-2019
(01-13-2019, 05:06 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(01-12-2019, 04:49 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(01-12-2019, 11:08 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Dependence on large-scale organisations like states and corporations is the root of the problem. We have to either go back to more a natural way of life, like the Amish did, or find a way for high tech to be usable in independent small scale communities.
The Amish way of life is incompatible with giant cities, let alone high technology, meaning anything more advanced than railroads and bicycles. An education beyond junior high is worthless in their world.
Simple living is more attractive than giant cities and swotting pages full of equations. This is the way Nature meant for us.
Some of us could not so simplify our lives. Some of us are hooked on vehicular mobility, instant communications, and intellectual indulgence. I am satisfied that the economic elites of 140 years ago were enjoying much that we do now, if in different forms. They enjoyed live theater instead of the cinema. They were perfectly happy to listen to opera or the symphony in a concert hall or opera house -- or heard organ music on a live orchestra. A recording is all that is available now of Artur Rubinstein (deceased) playing the piano in performance with the Chicago Symphony under the direction of Fritz Reiner (also deceased), and a video is the only way of watching Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn (both deceased) under the direction of Howard Hawks (also deceased) in the 1939 screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby. Maybe most of us would be wise to not collect clutter and to divest ourselves of what we have accumulated; most of us will end up sharing a room with someone similarly helpless in a nursing home. The elites were enjoying live music and theater too expensive for the proles.
Without radio and television, the Old Order Amish are spared much of the cultural schlock that many of us have found objectionable. The Old Order Amish are effectively also denied any opportunity to enjoy much of the great creative achievements of our world.
Some people see a beauty not so obvious to most people in "swotting through pages of equations". Many people have had an obsession with solving Fermat's Last Theorem, which proves that
a^n + b^n = c^n
has no integer solutions for non-zero a, b, and c and n>2. We of course have a solution c for every a and b if n = 1 (thus 5 + 12 = 17) and infinitely many for n = 2 (thus 5^2 + 12^2 = 13^2, because 25 + 144 = 169). This seems self-evident without a proof, but the mathematics of the proof is beyond me. It was a mystery for 358 years.
I try to make simplicity out of complexity, but that can itself be a complicated effort. But simplicity without truth, and worse, without joy, is either dishonest or mad. The intellectual basis of Marxism (that capitalism is corrupt, cruel, inequitable, and dehumanizing as a consequence of the drive for profit -- and anything corrupt, cruel, inequitable, and dehumanizing merits overthrow) is something that any overworked and underpaid worker of slight education can understand easily. Maybe capitalists can save themselves from being sent before firing squads by complicating life with consumerism, paid vacations, pensions, and tax-supported free public education.
If I must choose between simplicity and happiness I wi9ll choose happiness.
I am not convinced that the old ways were simpler. Feudal economics, with all the rights of lords and duties of peasants, was far more complicated than the free-enterprise system that came to dominate the world in the Age of Enlightenment. At the most blatant, the world is far simpler without 'slave codes' that established the perverse relationship between master and slave. This said, if I am ever asked to give youth advice, it is to not accumulate stuff and to not tie themselves to heavy personal debt (the two now go together) that keeps them from enjoying what makes life meaningful. Maybe the ultimate wisdom is to keep no more than one can transport in a suitcase so that one can travel easily and witness the best. We can all rent or borrow anything, and the technological wonders of our time allow us cell phones and notebook computers that allow us access to great art, literature, and music.
The fine china that my parents bought for me as an intended heirloom? I have never gotten a chance to use it. The fine china that they have in a pantry in the house that they used to have? I would love to sell it and the pantry in which it sits so that I could take an enriching journey.
RE: The New Robber Barons - David Horn - 01-13-2019
(01-12-2019, 11:08 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Dependence on large-scale organisations like states and corporations is the root of the problem. We have to either go back to more a natural way of life, like the Amish did, or find a way for high tech to be usable in independent small scale communities.
The first option is not just unlikely, it's nearly impossible in today's world. The second option is possible in the intermediate future, but not now. Tech is not that good yet, though it's certainly heading that way. For instance, Toyota, that most staid of Japanese companies, is working on robots for the home. When that gets to be common, the idea of human work will become optional or even recreational. Scale will be of no concern. What human society will look like is an open question I will never have to explore in person. You might.
RE: The New Robber Barons - David Horn - 01-13-2019
(01-13-2019, 05:06 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(01-12-2019, 04:49 PM)pbrower2a Wrote:(01-12-2019, 11:08 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Dependence on large-scale organisations like states and corporations is the root of the problem. We have to either go back to more a natural way of life, like the Amish did, or find a way for high tech to be usable in independent small scale communities.
The Amish way of life is incompatible with giant cities, let alone high technology, meaning anything more advanced than railroads and bicycles. An education beyond junior high is worthless in their world.
Simple living is more attractive than giant cities and swotting pages full of equations. This is the way Nature meant for us.
Is it? I question that. After all, we are who we are because we have large plastic brains, opposable thumbs, complex vocalization and the ability to sweat. On balance, those are tools that lead to complexity, not simplicity. Take the ability to sweat. If not for that, we would never have been able to work hard physically, form tribes and, later, civilizations. Opposable thumbs made us tool makers and users, which, again, leads to complexity. Plastic brains combined with complex vocalizations made us capable of abstract thinking.
We're geared for challenges, which may make our soon-to-be less demanding world less compatible with our inborne humanity.
RE: The New Robber Barons - beechnut79 - 01-14-2019
Do any of you think we will yet be successful in reducing excessive corporate power before this 4T has completely played out?
RE: The New Robber Barons - beechnut79 - 01-14-2019
Am enclosing an article I found on the AlterNet website today for discussion purposes. It is plain to see that, while the author doesn't specifically mention the Silicon Valley gang as the new robber barons, such is definitely implied.
https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/how-free-markets-killed-capitalism-ayn-rand-ronald-reagan-walmart-amazon-and-the-1-percents-sick-triumph-over-us-all/
RE: The New Robber Barons - pbrower2a - 01-15-2019
(01-14-2019, 07:49 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Do any of you think we will yet be successful in reducing excessive corporate power before this 4T has completely played out?
The Great Depression solved that problem in the last Crisis Era.
Stock markets are beginning to get dicey (the Wall Street term is 'volatile'), usually one of the first indicators of a collapse. I question whether Trump would handle it any better than Hoover did.
RE: The New Robber Barons - David Horn - 01-16-2019
(01-14-2019, 07:49 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Do any of you think we will yet be successful in reducing excessive corporate power before this 4T has completely played out?
If not, then the 4T will be a failure. It is the core test of our political life, because all the other problems are directly related.
RE: The New Robber Barons - pbrower2a - 01-16-2019
(01-16-2019, 10:39 AM)David Horn Wrote:(01-14-2019, 07:49 PM)beechnut79 Wrote: Do any of you think we will yet be successful in reducing excessive corporate power before this 4T has completely played out?
If not, then the 4T will be a failure. It is the core test of our political life, because all the other problems are directly related.
Monopoly and trusts are the norm in contemporary America. Economic power now dominates politics until someone like Trump gets erratic enough to scare the rich-and-powerful.
RE: The New Robber Barons - Bill the Piper - 01-17-2019
(01-13-2019, 12:37 PM)David Horn Wrote:(01-12-2019, 11:08 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Dependence on large-scale organisations like states and corporations is the root of the problem. We have to either go back to more a natural way of life, like the Amish did, or find a way for high tech to be usable in independent small scale communities.
The first option is not just unlikely, it's nearly impossible in today's world. The second option is possible in the intermediate future, but not now. Tech is not that good yet, though it's certainly heading that way. For instance, Toyota, that most staid of Japanese companies, is working on robots for the home. When that gets to be common, the idea of human work will become optional or even recreational. Scale will be of no concern. What human society will look like is an open question I will never have to explore in person. You might.
I was born in 1985, the last Xennial year. Labour should be obsolete around 2200. I don't think I'll live that long, but it remains a possibility. If there are nanobots able to rejuvenate human bodies, or brain transplants...
https://www.futuretimeline.net/23rdcentury/2200-2249.htm#trends-in-working-hours-2050-2100-2200-future-timeline
Space colonisation might also be a factor, allowing people to live an idealised version of ancient life in small-scale habitats. Kim Stanley Robinson's novel "2312" explores this possibility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2312_(novel)
Quote:We're geared for challenges, which may make our soon-to-be less demanding world less compatible with our inborne humanity.
The "power process". Perhaps in the post-scarcity world we will satisfy this need by playing virtual reality games? Or human nature will have to be altered.
RE: The New Robber Barons - Eric the Green - 01-18-2019
(01-17-2019, 08:11 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:(01-13-2019, 12:37 PM)David Horn Wrote:(01-12-2019, 11:08 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote: Dependence on large-scale organisations like states and corporations is the root of the problem. We have to either go back to more a natural way of life, like the Amish did, or find a way for high tech to be usable in independent small scale communities.
The first option is not just unlikely, it's nearly impossible in today's world. The second option is possible in the intermediate future, but not now. Tech is not that good yet, though it's certainly heading that way. For instance, Toyota, that most staid of Japanese companies, is working on robots for the home. When that gets to be common, the idea of human work will become optional or even recreational. Scale will be of no concern. What human society will look like is an open question I will never have to explore in person. You might.
I was born in 1985, the last Xennial year. Labour should be obsolete around 2200. I don't think I'll live that long, but it remains a possibility. If there are nanobots able to rejuvenate human bodies, or brain transplants...
https://www.futuretimeline.net/23rdcentury/2200-2249.htm#trends-in-working-hours-2050-2100-2200-future-timeline
Space colonisation might also be a factor, allowing people to live an idealised version of ancient life in small-scale habitats. Kim Stanley Robinson's novel "2312" explores this possibility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2312_(novel)
Quote:We're geared for challenges, which may make our soon-to-be less demanding world less compatible with our inborne humanity.
The "power process". Perhaps in the post-scarcity world we will satisfy this need by playing virtual reality games? Or human nature will have to be altered.
It's interesting to speculate about the future. For myself, I have to add a more esoteric spiritual perspective. Renicarnation is a likely fact, so we all may be back for this brave new world ourselves. How much we learn to remember of our past lives is another frontier of human knowledge we can cross in the new age.
Rejuvinating human bodies, space colonies, home robots, all are definite possibilities. I agree humans are inborn to challenge. But there's so much to challenge in our world besides physical labor for survival and material prosperity. That doesn't even begin to cover it. We will continue to explore and discover, advance science and technology to ever more frontiers. If we can re-discover the actual purpose of liberating ourselves from work, we will have so much more to do in building ever-greater and more beautiful temples, already such a great part of human legacy. We will have more to discover about our past, and so much more art, music and literature to create. And how many athletic challenges remain, just for the sport of it. How many more of us can become great athletes than in the past? Can medicine advance enough to make physical and mental handicaps a thing of the past?
And the most difficult thing, how will we overcome our human inabilities to relate to one another in peace and harmony? How do we become one people on one planet without any national, ethnic, racial or gender barriers at all, without subjecting ourselves to a monolithic, borderless, tyrannical new world order corporate global state? Will we learn to travel beyond light-speed, and meet and relate to other civilizations in the galactic federation? How do we end war for good, and abolish all weapons, including all guns? How do we make our technology fully compatible with the Earth, without any pollution or any threat to any life, and how do we keep our climate livable into the far future, even in spite of natural cycles, asteroids and volcanoes? How about our messed up social, economic and political structures? How can we improve our friendships and our romantic and sex lives, and our ethical sensitivity, and remove inhibitions without any need for stimulants and drugs, so we don't need "me-too" movements and traditional family values anymore? Technology, medicine, transhumanism and brain manipulation I think will have precious little ability to advance very far along these paths; only spiritual and personal growth work will suffice. That is the greatest frontier. There are so many challenges for humans.
Rediscover the new age movement, overcome philosophical Enlightenment-era physicalism, and ditch ancient authoritarian religions and superstitions (not to mention all conspiracy theories), and we will meet so many more challenges. The churches and religions of the past were stuck in traditionalism and authority. Science has ignored the soul, the reality of the hard problem. So the real esoteric level of spirituality as knowledge rather than belief remains largely virgin territory for most people, but now it's all open to us in the new age we live in.